I can sum my entire stance on education (and just about everything) in one simple word: Competition

When schools no longer have to raise standards to attract pupils, that's a problem. Also border lining monopoly.

Zarxrax wrote:As others have pointed out, this whole party system is shit.

Competition

Picking the lesser of 2 evils is not an intelligent way to decide a head of state.

The point is damn simple.

<Orwell> WTF are they doing upstairs. Almost sounds like construction<[Kristyrat]> Orwell, you see / <[Kristyrat]> when a man really likes a woman / <[Kristyrat]> or has a bottle of chloroform<inthesto> He takes her stuff / <inthesto> And then poops in her vagina

Just because we have differing options doesn't mean that there isn't factual grounding or validity to the argument.

What data do you have to insinuate that my point fails to hold water? The culmination of my personal life experiences (as stated prior) lead me to believe that government schooling is a corrupt institution slanted in favor of paranoid environmentalism and the "progressive" agenda.

<Orwell> WTF are they doing upstairs. Almost sounds like construction<[Kristyrat]> Orwell, you see / <[Kristyrat]> when a man really likes a woman / <[Kristyrat]> or has a bottle of chloroform<inthesto> He takes her stuff / <inthesto> And then poops in her vagina

It's an actual critique of your argument. I.E. the lack of a good structure or any good logic or rhetorical devices at all. Basically all I see is some sort of vague thesis statement.

If you wish to argue your point (which I think is that 'Adam smith's idea of a free market should apply to all things, or in this case, education') I would request you organise your thoughts and type them out in a well thought out, structured persuasive essay so that we, the readers, may understand better what it is you are trying to say and then can either agree or disagree.

Mr Pilkington wrote:When schools no longer have to raise standards to attract pupils, that's a problem. Also border lining monopoly.

This argument is built on the premise that schools need to "attract" pupils away from competing schools, like a business needs to attract customers away from competing businesses. This premise is flawed for two reasons. The first is that education is mandated by the government. It is literally illegal in the USA to drop out of school under a certain age. That is, children are going to be in school whether they like or not. When the customers in a market are forced to buy, the shitty, low-rent providers are going to get business no matter what. The solution isn't to keep shutting down the low performance schools and then overcrowding the next lowest rung on the ladder, but to invest in the poorly performing schools to bring them up to speed. The second problem is that education is not a luxury or a commodity, it is a right. The idea of choosing a different product works great when you're talking about televisions, cars, or dining out. It doesn't work so well when you're talking about a right that is fundamental to the functioning of our government.

And if you bring up that applying free market principles to education would solve these problems by raising the standards of education, you're not thinking about the practical consequences enough. You said yourself that it would inevitably create bargain bin schools. However, if education is so important, why does any student deserve to go to a shitty school - which you admitted you necessarily exist? Furthermore, the "choice" to take your child out of a crappy school and use a voucher to enter a better school isn't a realistic option for many families. Yes, middle class and higher families can plan around that sort of thing, but working class and lower families probably can't. A free market of education is going to further stratify students into the "haves" who can manage to get into a high quality school and the "have-nots" who are stuck in the crappy ones regularly getting shut down.

That said, I do believe that the American education system in its current state is flawed. The argument is that applying free market economics is going to exacerbate those problems, not solve them.

Sukunai, Real Canadian Hero wrote:Note to any Muslims present. Abuse a female in my presence, and you are being sent to a hospital emergency ward with life threatening injuries. And no human law will make me change my mind.

I think the problem with schools is the students.Some schools work better than others because they have great students. And then some schools are failing because the students are just crappy people. You take both a high performing and a low performing school from the same area, and you swap out the administration and teachers and everything. I'd bet that the low performing school is STILL going to be a low performing school.When you fill a school with a bunch of kids who just don't want to learn, you can't force them to.

To build on that,I think low performing schools need to add different types of courses to the curriculum that can engage these students better, or prepare them for the real world rather than preparing them for college.

While I agree with your point at-large, it's really, really unfair to be calling low performing students "crappy people". The way our education system is modeled right now really only caters to a very small portion of students. Of course, an individual student can strive hard and succeed if they work hard enough, but if the swaths of students and schools that are failing, it's probably a problem at the institutional level, not the individual.

That said, I do agree that the answer it to expand and diversify school curricula. It's really unfair to children that society keeps saying that everyone needs and deserves a college education, when the fact is that not everyone is suited for college/university, and post-secondary education is not suited for every career path. Hell, if you don't like literature, mathematics, science, or history, you're really fucked before you get to college. While learning should be standardized to a certain degree and all these fields of academics are very important, trying to pigeonhole every single child into one of these categories does more damage than good on the whole.

Sukunai, Real Canadian Hero wrote:Note to any Muslims present. Abuse a female in my presence, and you are being sent to a hospital emergency ward with life threatening injuries. And no human law will make me change my mind.

inthesto wrote:While I agree with your point at-large, it's really, really unfair to be calling low performing students "crappy people". The way our education system is modeled right now really only caters to a very small portion of students. Of course, an individual student can strive hard and succeed if they work hard enough, but if the swaths of students and schools that are failing, it's probably a problem at the institutional level, not the individual.

You're right of course, that was a really poor choice of words on my part. A lot of the kids really have no hope. Maybe some of them really have a lot of potential, but being thrown in with a bunch of others who aren't in it for the right reasons, peer pressure and all, it will lead them down the wrong path as well. A lot of it stems from what's going on at home. When there is no proper support at home, the kids can't really be expected to excel at school.

I was sent to a private school growing up. You know what most of the kids there had? They had a parent at home. And you know what happened to the undesirables, the troublemakers? They got kicked out. Under these circumstances, its no wonder that it could be academically superior to some public schools in the area. My private school wasn't necessarily a better school, nor did it necessarily have better teachers. Hell, some of my teachers didn't even do anything but let us watch cartoons or they would tell stories all day. The main difference is that they dictated who was "in".

Don't take this to mean that I am advocating getting rid of all the kids who aren't doing that great, or anything like that. I'm just saying that this is a lot of the reason that some schools do much better than others, rather than it just being a matter of competition or some such.

Diversification is certainly one thing that the education system needs - and this applies to both practical and purely academic curricula. But the system itself is flawed on levels that have to do with socio-economic class, the quality of the teachers and teaching methods, individual students, and probably a dozen other factors.

One of the things I strongly feel is needed is to bulk up Magnet programs (through my own experience of being in Gifted, MEGSSS/CAST/IMAST, and [only the Pre-]International Baccalaureate programs over the course of 8 of the 13 years I was in public school), as those work within the public school system and if implemented in a more systemic and broader way, could potentially increase the base quality of education significantly.

The downside to this is that it can also cause more separation, since the programs (unless the Magnet program is the only program at the school) normally operate alongside the Traditional program in parallel, essentially creating two schools in one physical location, and tension between the two programs can arise (and I have seen it happen, where you can have Magnet students looking down on those in the Traditional program, and Traditional students being resentful of those in the advanced programs as a result). A similar effect can be observed where students take all Honors or AP classes, except those are typically offered à la carte rather than as a set, and Honors/AP students are still technically in the Traditional program, so it's a 'but they're our nerds' scenario.

That's the academic side, obviously. I also feel more attention should be paid to things like technical programs that explicitly prepare for the work force, and implementing them as early as middle school.

I read some guys on the internet quickly saying most states in the US are doing their own revolution not in a violent way but by creating their own parallel societies, parallel money (like using actual gold/silver) and that the power of the USA only exist from our symbolic worldwide system of representation.It wasn't the subject so he didn't tell more about it but I would like to know if he's true and if he is, if you could give me more informations about it please ^^

Btw, sorry about the double post but now that I think about it, I've also seen that vid on YT : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9geXO6V5OUYou'll see NYC rappers giving their op about carrying weapons and they're all for it, saying they kinda feel in danger with the police around them and as long as policemen have weapons, they want to have their own ones too. USA makes me scared sometimes...

MimS wrote:I read some guys on the internet quickly saying most states in the US are doing their own revolution not in a violent way but by creating their own parallel societies, parallel money (like using actual gold/silver) and that the power of the USA only exist from our symbolic worldwide system of representation.It wasn't the subject so he didn't tell more about it but I would like to know if he's true and if he is, if you could give me more informations about it please ^^

That sounds like some of the activities on the extremely laissez-faire capitalist side, especially in the anarcho-capitalist or agorist camps. But except for a vocal minority and some talking heads, that's not common (especially as some of that kind of talk gets into doomsday prepping territory that very few take seriously). There may be talk, but I've certainly not noticed anything like that happen in reality.

MimS wrote:I read some guys on the internet quickly saying most states in the US are doing their own revolution not in a violent way but by creating their own parallel societies, parallel money (like using actual gold/silver) and that the power of the USA only exist from our symbolic worldwide system of representation.It wasn't the subject so he didn't tell more about it but I would like to know if he's true and if he is, if you could give me more informations about it please ^^